Page 104 of Eternal Ruin

His eyes burned redder. “Ah, that’s what you saw.”

“But whenever I came home… you were always by the fireplace. I thought you loved it.”

His eyes swirled with so many secrets. “I was preparing myself. Etete encouraged me. Besides, I didn’t want you to see me flinch. If you knew, you likely would have doused the house in fire.”

“Probably,” Kidan whispered, and they both smiled a little. “Thank you. For doing that.”

His face had gentled, his eyes incredibly bright.

A silence stretched between them. Her chest tightened, waiting for him to speak.

Not knowing what kind act, if any, she’d ever offered him.

What had he seen in her mind?

As if hearing her thoughts, he spoke softly. “You wanted me to leave.”

“What?”

“When I lost my immortality, you wanted me to leave Adane House.” His brows met for a second, before releasing. “I thought it was because I wasn’t strong, useless to you as a human, but you wanted to protect me.”

The genuine surprise lingering in his words made her chest ache.

They had to stop assuming the worst of each other.

“We can be kind, can’t we?” she asked.

Susenyos’s lips arced and he brushed her cheek gently. “We can.”

“So why aren’t we?”

The question tugged at her soul. It wasn’t the first time she’d wondered this about herself, nor would it be the last.

“Because kindness requires a surrender, and neither of us have been treated well when we have.”

A sad smile touched her face. June. Kidan had only ever managed to be kind to her sister and that had been destroyed.

Susenyos stared at her with sleek eyes, still drunk from her blood.

Kidan had always known the only power she had over him was her blood, but she couldn’t help but wish for more. Feeding him like this had altered their relationship, solidified it into nothing but an exchange of benefits.

They would be cursed to play this role forever until something changed. A vampire and an acti.

I don’t want your blood to rule us. I don’t want obligated devotion, he had said.

Kidan didn’t want that either.

But one thing was for certain, Kidan wasn’t ready to surrender. Neither her heart nor her house.

Not until she could set laws that would punish her sister and make GK human again.

37.

JUNE

June mixed wawri seeds with yard yellow plant, a hunger-curbing remedy, waiting for Taj Zuri to arrive in her lab. The Nefrasi always ran low on blood and for the past year, June had been giving them this remedy, particularly for Henok and Biruk.

She had visited Samson in Drastfort prison earlier today and changed the sauag leaves on his infected hand but she couldn’t get his face out of her mind. He hadn’t said a word even as June tried to calm him down, reminded him to not hurt Kidan because they still needed her. Only silent vengeance was written on his face. If Kidan didn’t give him the mask artifact by the time he got out… June shuddered. Samson was unforgiving in his punishments.